A Doctor Who Novel with not only Twelve and Clara, but Vastra, Jenny, and Strax? What current Who fan could turn that down? Well, not this one. This is not my first Doctor Who novel, it is not even my first staring the Twelfth Doctor. See my review of Doctor Who: The Blood Cell.  Now we come to Doctor Who: Silhouette by Justin Richards. This is another one of three Twelfth Doctor books that were released on September 9^th by Broadway books. This time around I am a bit more familiar with the latest regeneration, having seen a couple more episodes since I read the last story. As I have said in my last Doctor Who review, I hope anyone reading this already knows of the show. Other books are not necessary, but without knowing the current incarnation of the show, you will be a bit at a loss. I will not recap the characters or concepts from the show here either, because if you are not a fan of the show, I just cannot see reading this book or going further in this review.

We begin the novel with three sets of main characters, in three settings, investigating three mysteries. Let us start with the most important character: The Doctor. When we first join the Doctor and Clara, they are heading for Victorian London to investigate a power spike that should not exist. Next we are brought into a seemingly impossible murder where Madame Vastra is called upon to investigate by the victim himself.  Jenny assists in the investigate, as is to be expected.  Strax has a new drinking buddy, one of the few humans he can stand without thoughts of obliterating them with scissor grenades. After a night at the pub, Strax’s new friend is found dead. Strax is now on a hunt for vengeance. Eventually The Doctor and Clara cross paths with Jenny at a carnival which seems to somehow connect their cases, and their investigations coincidentally intertwine. Strax’s quest is clearly connected as well (from the beginning I might add, really would not call this a spoiler), though it take a little longer for all parts to come together.

As I mentioned earlier, I do have a better feel for the Peter Capaldi’s Doctor now. I now feel a bit more confident in discussing other portrayals of him. I think Justin Richards really did a great job in capturing this, at the time of publication, still relatively underexposed character. Nobody really knew him at the time, but I think this novel held quite well to the personality that has been developing on screen. In the show, Twelve is quite detached from humanity now and has become a bit of a grumpy old many who rather thinks himself more charming and handsome than he is. He is quite often unintentionally (at least I think) rude and his quips with Clara always become almost innocently insulting, like when talking to a child with no real filter. Richards manages to convey this quite well in his writing of the Doctor. The other characters were very well written and were true to their live action counterparts. Strax, I think, was the most well done among them. If there was any hesitation about reading this and having these characters ruined or not brought over properly, you can forget them.

The other important factor in any Doctor Who adventure, be it a novel, an episode, or even radio production, is the villain. The main antagonist in Silhouette is very well done. Now, there are a few “badguys” in here I suppose. While any of them are good Doctor Who antagonists, especially lately, the main opponent here is really well suited to be an adversary of the Doctor. He is intelligent, difficult to figure out and even more difficult to counter. There is enough character development here to get a good feeling of who he is. There is a fair bit of exposition, but it is done well enough, and in conversation, that it feels quite natural.

Well, here comes the real question. How did I like the story? I have to say that I really did enjoy it. I did initially worry about it being too forced with the other characters, but it felt right. Perhaps there were a few too many coincidences and I thought the Doctor would normally jump on that, but maybe this is just to show a change in the current Doctor. I enjoyed the ending, but the resolution felt a bit expected to me. I have not gotten that impression from other reviewers though, so maybe it is just me. Taking all into account, I would give it 4/5. Very good story and use of well known and loved characters. An enjoyable read I would feel confident about recommending to any fan of New-Who. One final bit of not-quite spoileryness, there is a scene with some great references for fans who know not only the new series, but the classics as well. Enjoy!

Doctor Who: The Blood Cell by James Goss is one of three new Doctor Who stories being released this Tuesday September 9th, 2014 by Broadway Books, which feature the Twelfth Doctor. I  received this eARC through Blogging for Books via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. I was excited to get this book since I am a die hard Doctor Who fan. At the same time, I was not sure what to expect since at the time of this writing, only three episodes with the twelfth Doctor have aired. I even found myself reading it in Eleven’s voice, even when trying to keep Twelve’s in my head. I do wonder a little if putting these out now was in fact strategically smart with the momentum from the new season, or if it is too early since we had not yet had time to really get to know the latest regeneration or really see him as The Doctor.

Refocusing on the book, we join the Doctor in this adventure in a prison set in a remote asteroid. Very little is know upfront, we have no idea why the Doctor (Prisoner 428) is in this prison, what terrible event he is looking to avert, or where exactly Clara and the Tardis are. He obviously does have an agenda. Let’s face it, the Doctor almost always does.  What we do knows is that he believes that something bad is going to happen and if the Governor of the prison does not work with him and release him, something bad will happen and people will start getting killed, which for the record, Clara shows up and petitions the Governor claiming the same thing. With the Doctor, these statements generally hold true, even if he is not aware of some impending doom. Since the Governor does not believe him, the Doctor decides he will just have to continually break out until they get the point. I cannot get too much deeper into the plot without spoilers, but needless to say, the prison is having problems and while everyone blames the Doctor, he wants to figure out what is really going on.

What is interesting about this narrative is that it is written in a first person point of view and not that of the Doctor or Clara, but of the Governor. This is somewhat of a change from other Who novels.  It does offer a unique perspective that I can only think of one or two TV episodes that approached it this way. The plot itself was not bad. It seemed in line with what could be an episode this season. I have seen a number of other reviewers criticizing the ending, but I saw no problem with it. In all fairness, it was an ending I would come to expect from the current direction of the show. It actually felt a bit like the Satellite Five and later Gamestation episodes. Was it an amazing, epic Doctor Who adventure? Not particularly. Was it an awful adaptation of the Doctor? Certainly not. It was a fair and decent story. There were funny moments, suspenseful moments; it was Doctor Who.

One area I am normally very critical of is characterization, but novelization of a running character is really hard to fit into a regular square box. If you read the book, you should be well familiar with the character. The author should not be defining the main characters in a Doctor Who novel. They are already near and dear to the readers. Your only job is not to butcher them. What Goss did need to do was define the other characters which I felt he really did do a good job with. Also, since this is early in the 12th Doctor’s run, he did have to work with a personality we do not know much about yet and I think with that in mind, he fared quite well. The Doctor’s little quips and obliviously unflattering comments to Clara fit in with the first few Capaldi episodes. As does the spoon. I do not know if it was intentional, but a spoon does come into play in Season 8 Episode 3 as well as in this novel, which gave me a bit of a chuckle. The way it come up here though was something I may have expected more from the Tenth Doctor.

All in all I felt the book was pretty good for a Doctor Who story. As I said earlier, it is neither the worst nor best I have come across, but it was entertaining and engaging. I flew through it. I will admit it was tough to put down, I finished it in two days. It took a lot from the show and worked with a new Doctor that I honestly do not know enough about yet to criticize the portrayal. With that, it is considerably more difficult to rate. My gut says that it is a 3.5/5. If you are a Doctor Who fan, it is worth a read. Just do not expect a “Blink” or “A Good Man Goes to War”.